Tuesday, June 26

Last winter, I was on a cub scout camping trip with my
son.Me and a bunch of dads.The inevitable “what do you do for a living
conversation” came up over pancakes.I
hadn’t gotten too far into the “I design corporate training programs that
people take online” description before one of the dads started hissing at
me.Literally.He formed his fingers into a cross and said, “You’re the CBT Lady!”

Visions of a hair-netted lunch lady serving up sloppy
joes.Is that what I am?

He went on to describe the true horrors he had suffered
while forced to complete hour after endless hour of boring, locked down
elearning programs:“They make us sit through this long audio and
you can’t click next until it’s over and then you get to the end of the quiz
and you have to take all twenty questions over again because you got one
question wrong!”

I attempted to defend myself and our profession.“We try to do it better than that! That’s not
what we’re about!” I protested.My words
fell on deaf ears.This man had suffered
and would hear nothing more.

Weeks later he introduced me to his wife and I got the exact
same treatment. She works in the pharmaceutical industry and had similar tales
of woe and suffering at the hands of elearning. “Honey, she’s the CBT Lady!”

The point is, this is what a lot of people think of this
profession and the work that elearning designers and developers put out there
in the name of training.Is this what
you want your name on? Is this how you want to be known?

So before you go out and spend another minute planning your
next learning initiative, go out and find out just how what you’re already
doing is being perceived.

Do you know how the people in your organization currently
view your formal learning offerings? Is classroom training seen as punishment
for poor performance or a careless slip of the tongue? Or is it a breezy day or
two out of the office with free lunch?What about elearning? Is it a task to be endured while otherwise
multitasking?

Conduct surveys or get an informal feet-on-the-street view
of what’s really happening.You may want
to walk around and check out the kitchens or break rooms. Are the answers to
the latest compliance elearning assessment posted on the fridge for all to
share?The message here is that this
elearning is just a box to tick rather than an activity with any actual value—or
any connection to improving any one’s performance.

Ask people what they think.If they’re really being honest, you might get responses that will take
your breath away: “You’re the CBT Lady!”

While you’re on this fact finding mission, find out what
people really value in a learning experience and find out if your organization
is providing that. If not, how?

Ask people how they like to learn on their own time. Ask people what you could offer them to help
them do their jobs better.

Find ways to provide support and tools that give people what
they need and when they need it.Can you
embed performance support tools and job aids into the work flow? Can you use
social business tools to connect people directly to the experts in your
organization or provide a platform for asking questions and sharing knowledge,
information and best practices?

Look at your data and see what you can uncover.I heard a story of an organization that
developed an award winning elearning program with game-like features and
goal-based scenarios.They got lots of
hits and uptake from their European and Asian audiences—an unexpected
outcome—while the intended American audience stayed away in droves.Why was that? And then why was this
organization now designing a very similar program for their American audience?
Do we ever learn?

I’m raising questions here and not providing a lot of
solutions, I realize. But the point is to live the questions first.Find out what people really think of all of
the effort you and your team create.Then ask the question, “is that the kind of work you want to stand by?”
Stop being the CBT Lady, I beg you.And then
let’s all go out and find better ways together.

Monday, June 11

I met for coffee this past week with someone who’s looking
to break into the elearning industry. She wanted to know where she should be looking and what the hot topics out there are. I was giving her my 12,000 foot lay of the
land, this is what I see going on kind of a thing.It was so interesting to step by and take
stock of what’s happening.

Here’s where I see elearning going down these days:

Corporate Training
and Performance Improvement

Internal L&D departments and vendors designing and
developing online learning programs for use within corporate organizations. This is 90% of what I do and I imagine the case for a lot of you people reading this post.

Leadership Training
for Corporate:

You look at the ASTD ICE expo list and it’s filled with
loads of leadership consulting and training companies. The Franklin Coveys, Ken
Blanchards, etc.This is it’s whole
behemoth sector in the market – it includes a lot of classroom training and
increasingly elearning programs as part of those solutions.

K-12:

Lots of elearning happening in the school sector.Although, I haven’t seen much of great
quality.My son has to do some of his
math homework online: really basic games.He says, “I’m not learning, I’m just getting bored!”Hopefully there’s a lot more than that going
on.

Higher Ed:

Want a master’s degree or a BA? Chances are these days you
can take some, if not all of your degree program, online.And of course there’s the latest MIT/Harvard
online education initiative EdX.

eLearning design for semester long courses is
a different beast than your corporate training elearning design where you’re
creating a 30 minute course on the latest policy. I suspect making a jump from higher ed to the corporate world and vice versa would be a big change -- and quite possibly a completely different skill set.

Just bought a fancy new camera? Maybe that company has some
fancy elearning to help you learn how to use it.More and more we’ll be seeing companies
striving to increase their market share by creating value added programs like
online learning to help people use their products better.Because the better pictures you take with
that fancy camera, the greater your loyalty AND the more you’ll get out there
and evangelize about that camera.

Health Care/Mental
Health:

I think this is a niche area that’s only going to continue
to grow.It’s getting specific
resources, information and strategies out to the general public – either through
an insurance company as part of their overall benefits offerings, or as
programs individuals can purchase online with a credit card.I’ve been involved in two such programs in
the past two years and I think it’s a really interesting space.Want to help people and make a difference in
the lives of individuals?Start poking
around here.

I just pulled this list out of my head.I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of big buckets and
welcome your additions in the comments.

The bottom line is that elearning/online interactive ‘stuff’
is increasingly accepted.Who hasn’t
searched on YouTube to figure out how to stop a leaking toilet? It’s just what
we do. And while more and more of the
content out there is user generated (power to the people!), organizations are
paying attention.

Organizations in all sectors are figuring out how to create
a valuable presence online that will meet the needs of their audience
(consumers, students, employees, human beings).Elearning is happening everywhere – even if that’s not what it’s called.

If you’re trying to break into “the field” – just remember
that it’s a huge field.Figure out where
you want to shine and make your difference.

Monday, June 4

Once upon a time, I worked at a small
company. Because I knew the business and had helped design our software
package, and because I was pretty good in front of a crowd, I ended up doing
the training.

One thing led to another and a couple of
years later, I got hired at a small multi-media production company that
developed corporate training programs delivered on CD ROMs.

My new job title: “instructional
designer.”I’d never even heard the
term, but here I was—off to the races—in what’s turned into a rather healthy
career in elearning.16 years later I’m
still at it, designing elearning programs for the (mostly) corporate
market.It’s what I do – and, hopefully,
what I do well.

But I got here pretty much by accident.

What about you? How did you find your way
into this role? How did you end up designing elearning programs?Is this what you wanted to be when you grew
up?

Me? I had visions of becoming a high school
English teacher or a writer of fine American novels. And while elearning design
isn’t all that, it’s sometimes a whole lot more.In my role, I teach, I write, I schmooze, I
share, I design, I create, and I learn.

Because although I’m here completely by
accident, I’ve tried to invest myself in this business with passion and
spirit.I walked into this field not
knowing how to spell instructional design. And while I’ve never taken a formal
class or gotten a fancy graduate degree in instructional design, I have spent a
LOT of time learning the basics and honing my craft.Maybe it’s some deep rooted inferiority
complex, but my desire is to do my job to the best of my abilities.

Here are three things I regularly do to learn
more about this profession and keep my passion for what I do at a gentle boil:

Read, read, read

I get geeky and read instructional design
textbooks.I learn about learning. I
read up on visual design and design in general.I read books about business and consulting.And I also read novels and poetry and
non-industry stuff to make sure I’m continuing to fill my creative cup.Over the years I’ve created a reading list for Instructional Designers.

What about you? Are you reading about this stuff in your spare
time? What books or resources have you learned the most from?

Conferences

I speak at a lot of conferences. As a
speaker, I need to know my stuff, otherwise the crowd starts throwing tomatoes
at me.Speaking keeps me on my
game.And while I’m at these
conferences, I get to go learn myself.Good stuff.And not just at
sessions, but while connecting with peers and colleagues over coffee or late
night karaoke.Elearning people tend to
be pretty passionate. Find your people and learn from them!

ASTD’s TechKnowledge (coming up January 30-February 1, 2013 in San
Jose) is a great place to learn more about elearning and connect with other
learning geeks.Are you going? If it’s
not in your plan yet, make it happen!Speaking
proposals are being accepted until June 10.Make this be your inaugural year!http://old.astd.org/content/conferences/techknowledge/RFPtk/

Community

Speaking of people, there’s a lot to learn
from each other even when we’re not in the same room together.When I was first getting my ID passion on, it
was all about the blogging community and man-oh-man did I connect to a lot of
great people through blogging.It’s been
a great place to document and process my own learning journey, and a fabulous
way to connect with other elearning professionals.

These days, a lot of the community activity
is on Twitter, where you can be up close and personal with great learning minds
like Jane Bozarth (@janebozarth), Clark Quinn (@quinnovator) and Karl Kapp
(@kkapp).

Who do you learn from? Do
you have a mentor you can bounce ideas off of or who can gently steer you into
new areas of learning? Who are you connecting with and learning from online?

What’s in your personal
learning plan?

So
what’s your game plan for getting better at what you do?Do you take classes? Go to free online
webinars? Write books? Look at lots and lots of elearning programs for
inspiration? What helps you create and sustain passion for this work?Would love to hear your ideas and
inspirations in the comments here—and/or find me on Twitter! @cammybean.

-------------------

Cammy Bean is the VP of Learning Design for Kineo US (www.kineo.com) and has been accidentally doing elearning since the mid-90s.A frequent conference speaker
and active blogger, Cammy served as the ASTD TK12 Planning Committee
Chairperson and will be a featured speaker at this year’s ASTD LearnNow
conferences in Boston (July 25-26).You
can find Cammy’s blog at http://cammybean.kineo.com/.

Friday, June 1

I am speaking on the topic of Getting Lost in a 3D Virtual World: Selecting and Evaluating Appropriate Virtual Worlds for Learning.

Here is a brief description of the presentation.

This presentation details the trials and tribulations of selecting, implementing evaluating and teaching within a 3D virtual World. The presentation is based on the experience of DAU as the organization journeyed down the road of 3D virtual world implementation. From cataloging hundreds of virtual worlds to working with a vendor to create a browser-based virtual world solution to preparing learners to enter a virtual world, you'll gain an understanding of the entire process from start to finish. Join your tour guides who will describe the process undertaken to choose a vendor, work out technical details, prepare instructors and conduct a pilot program learning within a 3D virtual environment. This engaging, exciting session highlights lessons learned from a real live implementation. You will be provided with tips and techniques for selecting your own 3D virtual world for learning, advice on conducting a pilot and a few pointers about what to avoid during the process.

If you are there at the conference, please stop by and say "Hello." I am speaking at 10:00 AM ET.

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About Learning Circuits

ASTD launched Learning Circuits in January 2000. Its goal was to promote and aid the use of e-learning, creating a body of knowledge about how to use technology efficiently and effectively for learning. There are nearly 800 articles currently on the website.

About ASTD

ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) is the world’s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals. ASTD is dedicated to providing resources to practitioners working the field of e-learning. ASTD delivers the free webzine Learning Circuits, the ASTD TechKnowledge Conference & Exposition; two educational certificate programs on e-learning design; and numerous books and Infolines.